The
Five: Free from the Army!
By the Refusers Parents' Forum, 23 September 2004

Dear supporter

The Refuseniks Parents' Forum is pleased to announce that the five draft
resisters, Haggai Matar, Noam Bahat, Adam Maor, Shimri Zameret and Matan
Kaminer have been officially informed that they are hereby released from
the ranks of the army.

The release from the Israeli army comes after an epoch-making court battle
and after the five young men have spent close to two years in confinement.
The campaign against the imprisonment of the five, for having resisted
mobilization to the Israeli army, as long as it is an army of occupation,
has received wide international attention and evoked strong expressions of
solidarity the world over.

The release of the five will be marked in a mass public reception this
Thursday, September 23 in Tel Aviv. Expressions of solidarity are pouring
in from public figures in Israel and all over the world.

This is a victory for all women and men of good conscience who refuse to
participate in oppression and occupation. The calm bravery of these five
young men reminds us that we all have the right to refuse to be part of
the occupation and suggests that we might well consider that this right is
really a duty.

We take this occasion to express our deepest heartfelt thanks for the
many, many thousands of expression of moral, political and financial
solidarity. We owe a special expression of gratitude to the attorney for
the five, Dr Dov Khenin.

We see this battle as an important chapter in the fight for an Israel
living in peace and equality with our Palestinian neighbors and friends,
the Palestinian people. Israel will either overcome the occupation or be
destroyed by it.